[Paddlewise] Speed Rolling

This Sunday our club, CKF, will be holding their annual picnic on the calm
waters of Alamitos Bay. Seems long ago, but it was just last year that Craig
made the crazy all night drive to come down to attend. This year Duane
Strosaker is in charge of the festivities. After a couple year absence,
we're having a speed rolling contest again.

Now at the beginning of this year, I was just happy I was pretty confident
of pulling out one roll in the ol' Lollygagger. But a few weeks ago, out
rolling my Sapsucker with my friend Ken, we decided to work on our speed
rolling and enter the contest. We don't harbor hopes of winning, just
competing seemed a lofty enough goal.

Well our practice sessions since then have been few and far between, but
yesterday we went out on a warm afternoon for some practice. Both Ken and I
were able to do 9 rolls only seconds past the 30 second deadline. I had
tried to stop at 8, but was so dizzy I fell over and had to do my ninth and
Ken said I almost made it! We were both pretty happy and wondered if in the
heat of battle we'll be able to keep up this pace.

Anyway, it got me thinking that speed rolling isn't a good thing to practice
on your own! I'd spent the weekend out in Denver visiting my newest grandson
and hadn't gotten a lot of sleep, so I already had a headache when we hit
the water. Perhaps it was a bit of jet-lag, but I was a bit loopy after my
nine rolls and glad someone was around just in case. I may go out solo
today, but I'll take it slow and just work on form a bit. Sadly, my offside
roll was totally missing yesterday.

Anybody else out there have any speed rolling stories???

Mark
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